


A Sinner's Second Chance

by songofproserpine



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: But will obviously be resolved in the future because it's JOHN, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Flirting, Fluff and Humor, Implied/Referenced Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Nudity, Sexual Humor, Sexual Tension, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 14:05:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15293154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofproserpine/pseuds/songofproserpine
Summary: This is a prompt fic for my friend, Peach, who asked that I write a fluffy piece of John and a female Deputy having a mutual attraction, a run-in at his ranch with his overprotective cat, and a naked John bursting onto the scene.





	A Sinner's Second Chance

Love at first sight didn't exist, alright? It couldn't. It _can’t_.

Rook knew this, believed it, and was thus at a complete and total loss as to why she found herself with a stuttering heart and a pair of eyes that slingshot constantly from Joseph Seed’s face to the man standing behind him.

 _Probably one of his brothers._ There were a few similarities between the men that were obvious at a first glance—the eyes, the hair, the angle and length of the nose. Judging by the other man’s face, he was the youngest of the brothers, and clearly the only one with any good fashion sense.

Rook didn't understand why she was staring at this man more than the current threat in the room. She also wasn't sure why he gazed back at her with a similar keen, focused interest. Maybe he was trying to size her up, see how much of a threat she was. _That makes sense._

But then he _winked_ at her, and Rook didn't know what the hell to think.

Marshal Burke had no such problem. “Cuff this son of a bitch,” he said, gesturing to Joseph Seed. The harsh bark of his voice drew Rook back to the present.

She raised her eyebrows. So did the youngest Seed brother (she could see him indistinctly from the corner of her gaze), and when she chanced another quick glance at him, he tilted his head to the side and gave her slow, damnably charming smile.

 _Uh oh._ Rook’s heart tripped into an uneven rhythm against her ribs. _Stop looking at him. Focus._

She tried, God _knows_ she tried, not to think what it might be like to fix handcuffs to _another_ man in a far more intimate situation than arresting a wanted felon. Her mind refused to listen, refused, too, to rid itself of such delicious distractions until she was marching out of the church door with Joseph in custody. Still, her heart was a stubborn thing, and so Rook peered over her shoulder once, quickly, just in time to see the rest of Joseph’s family at the door of the church.

The youngest brother—and almost the shortest, she realized to her surprise—wasn't looking at her anymore, and Rook wondered why this disappointed her at all. She wondered as well why she felt much better when he finally _did_ look at her, as if her arresting his brother wasn’t going to get in the way of whatever little tangled thread of tension they’d been building between them.

With all this bouncing in her head, Rook couldn't help but wink at him, as much a challenge as it was a question. _What are you gonna do about it?_

The youngest Seed brother mouthed something, but she had no time to decipher it. Reluctantly, she turned around before she tripped over her own boots and got tangled up in Joseph’s legs. It wasn't until later—much later, after the helicopter crash and the surprise rescue from Dutch—did she realize what it was that the brother—John—said to her.  _I’ll come for you._

Not quite a declaration of love, that. But it still kept Rook up late at night with wonder.

 

John didn’t quite know that the Deputy who had caught his eye— _and_ arrested his brother—would not only immediately snatch his interest, but be made just as quickly into a mortal enemy. Not that a little bit of enmity or bad blood had ever stopped him from pursuing a woman before, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t just their crossed purposes that might get in the way of... well, anything. The gunfire and the bombs dropped on the getaway truck that she took a joyride in might have put an end to any hope of _that_. He could neither apologize to nor charm a charred corpse, after all.

When he returned to his ranch, John felt more troubled than even _he_ thought was wise, considering how complicated the whole damn thing was. The Deputy had taken away his brother—his _brother_ , his flesh and blood, his _Father_ , better than any actual father he had ever known. She had taken away the one person who held the Project together, and sure, that hadn’t exactly gone to plan, and Joseph had escaped safely, but... still. Enemies they were.

John didn't even know if she was alive anymore, and somehow that only made him feel worse.

Not even his beloved cats could pull his mind away from the Deputy for long, though that wasn’t for any failure on their part. His was a problem that was too troubling to be cured by watching his cats chase a laser pointer around until they got so tired they passed out in a huff. He was barely even cheered up by spoiling them with catnip-stuffed toys; he cracked only the smallest of smiles as they scampered around the living room.

Admitting defeat, John dragged himself upstairs and off to his bedroom. It took him four hours, several restless turns around his too-large, half-empty bed (carefully avoiding the cats, of course), and a half-hearted attempt at a fantasy until he realized what was troubling him. _Guilt_.

_Well… shit._

John stayed up until dawn wondering what the hell to do, and he spent the next week and a half trying—and failing—to find an answer. Apart from digging her body out of the Henbane, throwing a funeral for her, and apologizing during the eulogy, John saw no escape from this feeling.

Which is why when he saw a massive fireball erupt in the sky to east, and received an immediate, furious radio from Faith about that “selfish, careless Rookie,” he couldn’t help but smile.

John knew he _shouldn’t_ smile. He knew he shouldn’t be happy about this at all. The Deputy was a problem, a threat—she was _trouble_ , but she was _his_ kind of trouble… And she was alive.

 

Rook knew better than to confront the problem that was her fixation on John Seed until she could either remove that feeling entirely, or find a nice, quiet spot to tend to herself for a bit. That, at least, would purge the urge from her—leg-shaking orgasms tended to do that, and they had never let her down before.

Too bad she couldn’t find a place that was both private and _clean_. She had to make do with a few of those hunting outposts she’d found, but metal grating and perverted birds watching her tend to herself was, understandably, a total mood killer.

Rook also knew that she could just avoid her problems entirely by flitting back and forth from the Whitetail Mountains and Henbane, saving civilians, chipping away at outposts, burning shrines in effigy. All of these things kept her well out of the way and far from view of Holland Valley, where John crouched cackling, waiting.

So that was exactly what she did. She burned down Bliss shrines (and tried not to inhale too much of the fading fumes, lest she cloud bounce for a bit); she freed hostages from roadside hold ups; she fired a few rockets at that big ass Joseph Seed statue that loomed over the whole county, and even punched a few wolverines for her troubles. And for a time, this coping mechanism worked.

And then it stopped working, and she slipped right back into thinking of John goddamn Seed—John goddamn Seed and his eyes, pale and blue, shining out from an infuriatingly charming face. John goddamn Seed and his slicked back hair and long, navy blue and gray trench coat, decorated with what she was _sure_ was a pattern of little white planes. _The nerd._ John goddamn Seed and that _smile_ —why the hell did he smile like that? Who gave him the right?

All these thoughts churned and spun and whirled around her head, until one night Rook found herself straying just a little too close to the bridge dividing Henbane and the Valley. She didn’t know how close she was getting until she received a few panicky transmissions from people in and around Falls End, begging for help.

She thought about—and reconsidered—answering them, even though her guilt screamed at her to reassure these people that help was on the way. Her self-preservation put up a good counter argument; the last thing she wanted was to have the peggies know where she was. Jacob and Faith’s forces had already decided to tag team her up and round the north and down through the east. It was hard enough for Rook to avoid planes and hordes of Angels, patrolling like attack dogs in front of Jacob’s well-trained soldiers. The last thing she needed was to have John throw some more violence into the mix.

But the universe had a sense of humor, and it often made fools and lovers into the butt of its jokes, which was exactly why the next time she tuned in to a call on the radio, it patched her through to none other than—

“John?”

“ _Deputy_ ,” he sneered, drawing out the word into three distinct syllables. _Dep. You. Tee._ “The lady Lazarus. How _are_ you?”

“Confused. A little tired. Picking turkey feathers out of my hair.”

John chuckled. “Well that _is_ why they call them wildlife,” he said.

“Or fowl,” Rook countered, scattering another clutch of feathers. She paused, realized what she had said, and held her breath. _Please tell me he likes puns._

John’s silence was short and quickly broken by a laugh that was more like a cackle. “You walked right into that pun, didn’t you?”

Rook sighed. “I sure did.” Then, she frowned. “Hey, wait. You just made one too.”

His cackling continued, and the sudden silence that followed was almost warm, friendly.

 _Impossible_ , they both thought, unaware that the other one on the end of the line not only had the same thought, but was dismissing it, too.

“Have you called to say sorry?” she asked. “Last time I saw you, you brought a plane to a gun fight. That wasn’t fair.”

“It wasn’t personal,” he argued. “I didn’t know you were in the truck until it was too late.”

“Oh, so I could’ve been a casualty of wanton murder. Great.”

“Why not let all that bitterness and anger wash away?” he asked, his tone shifting into an almost pervasive tenderness. “Let it dissolve before it devours you. I can help you there.”

Rook held her breath again. Is this how Eve felt when the serpent whispered to her? She shivered. “Why would you do that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Offering me any kind of help after almost riddling my body with bullets is a classic case of mixed signals, John.”

“Then allow me to grant you some clarity,” he murmured, his voice warm. “I am especially glad that you made it out of that fight alive. I’m also _perplexed_ that you would target my siblings—who have yet to make a move against you—while almost going out of your way to avoid me entirely.”

“You’re the one who said you’d come for _me_.”

“And I would have been more than happy to fulfill that promise,” he said. He was downright whispering now. “But I thought you were dead up until a few minutes ago,” he added, with a sudden edge to his voice. It almost sounded like the idea of her being dead bothered him.

“You can’t think of a single reason why I would want to avoid the man who rains bullets down from above?” she asked.

John scoffed. “And how long would you have stayed in hiding? Your impatience, your anger, your sense of justice would inevitably come boiling up from deep within, seething as it sought the surface.” His voice lingered over every syllable, every consonant, as every _ess_ slithered its way out of his mouth. “Your sin, your _Wrath_ , would be roused, and that… that is where I could help you.”

Rook stared up at the stars in the sky and counted back from ten. This sounded _far_ too close to exactly how she thought flirting with John would go, it was almost uncanny. “Were you a phone sex operator or something before all this?” she asked.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious. You have a knack for it. Might wanna keep your options open if this whole cult thing doesn’t go to plan.”

“The _plan_ ,” John said, his voice now almost a snarl, “is to survive—which is little different from how you are yourself, Deputy.”

“You all have bunkers!” she protested. “I have strategic hiding places under pines and shrubs.”

That earned her another laugh. “You haven’t made friends with the locals yet?”

“I’ve been laying low,” she explained. “Didn’t want to make it easy to find me.”

“Evidently. And now you’re alone.” John cleared his throat. “Speaking of which… you are more than welcome to pay me a visit,” he said, as if he were inviting her over for dinner. And before Rook could say anything—either to agree or argue—John continued. “Consider this an olive branch, a show of good faith—a sinner’s second chance.”

 _His, or mine?_ “That’s… really nice and all, John, but I’m not sure I want to be trapped underground with your pals. I don’t think they’d be happy to see me.”

“I have a _house_ ,” he said, his tone clipped, almost insulted. “You would be my guest.”

Rook tried not to think about how often she had thought of spending a night, just one night, in a building that didn’t recently have corpses removed from it. Lately she had to fall back on sleeping out under the stars, but that was hardly comfortable. It certainly wasn’t a house—and it certainly wasn’t a house that was likely to be as lavish as one owned by  _John goddamn Seed_.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why not?”

“Why invite me? _Me_?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked again, almost surprised. “ _‘The quality of mercy is not strained,’_ ” he continued, shifting into a lofty, exaggerated tone that wouldn’t be out of place on stage. “ _‘It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.’_ ”

Rook sat silent, stunned.

“ _‘It is twice blessed,’_ ” he said, his voice drawing out each word, making her think of his mouth and picturing it with vivid detail. “ _‘It blesseth him that gives and…_ she _that takes.’_ ”

 _This isn’t love,_ Rook insisted, pressing her hand down stubbornly against her thumping heart. _This is… a dizzying and distracting appreciation for a man who is last on my hit list, and first on my hit it list_.

“So, my dear… What do you say?”

“I say… I say you tell your peggie security pals to clear off for a few minutes, so I can sneak in and we can have a heart to heart, face to face,” she said, using all of her nerve to do it.

“ _Yes_ ,” John hissed, pleased. “I look forward to seeing you soon, Deputy.”

 

It took Rook most of the night to safely creep through the Valley. The moon was almost setting by the time she made it within view of John’s ranch—more than enough time to eliminate any chance to enter it unobserved.

 _Dammit_. She’d just have to do this the old-fashioned, sneaky, sleeper hold way. Good thing she’d been practicing on Sharky and Hurk—at their request, weirdly enough.

Once she was close to the back of the ranch, Rook crouch-walked up to a pair of large double doors plated with wood and glass. She held her breath and gently nudged the doors open.

The ground floor of John’s ranch was almost entirely shrouded in darkness. Ghostly pale slivers of silver moonlight bled in from the windows and skylight, illuminating only a few corners of the interior in a powdery, eerie glow. She wondered what it looked like in daytime—it was probably nice. Then she wondered if she’d survive long enough to see it.

As she wondered, Rook’s knee bumped against the leg of a long dining table. She straightened up and peered over the edge. Except for an answering machine and what looked like an alarming amount of supplies for an arsenal, the table hardly seemed like a usual dining room table at all. There was one small place setting arranged, but the mat, the plate, and the utensils seemed long abandoned, more for show than actual use. It was almost… sad.

Rook turned to peer into the darkness of the house once more, and just as she wondered whether she should risk calling John on the radio, some _thing_ brushed against her.

She yelped—one of the most undignified, embarrassing noises it was possible for a human to make—and stumbled back, her elbow crashing hard on the wooden floor. Something squirmed beneath her, yowling, hissing. And then—

“Ouch! _Fuck_.” Rook snatched her hand away from whatever angry creature was trying to turn her fingers into bloody ribbons. Had a fuckin’ wolverine followed her in here?

A loud noise drew Rook’s eyes up just in time to see an overhead light burst to life. She was briefly blinded, first by the sudden light, and then by what the light revealed: John _goddamn_ Seed, rushing downstairs as naked as the day he was born, covered only in his tattoos, wearing nothing but a furious expression.

 _Goddamn is right_ , Rook thought, her face burning bright with a blush.

They stared at each other for a long moment. She broke the silence first.

“… Hi.” She waved at him, showing off her bloody hand.

“ _Deputy_?”

At the sound of John’s voice, the same animal—a cat, apparently—darted forward and began to circle his ankles, purring loudly.

“You have a cat?” she asked.

“Two cats,” he corrected, scooping up the one at his feet—a Siamese by the look of it—and giving its head a few slow, loving pats. “Pollux is too shy for company. Castor’s the brave one.” He looked at Rook as if seeing her for the first time, his gaze lingering on her injured hand. “You’re bleeding.”

“You’re naked,” she said.

John looked down at himself. He shrugged. “I _thought_ it was a little warm in here.”

 _I can’t believe I’m hearing this._ “Aren’t you going to get dressed?”

“Aren’t you going to stand up?” he asked, still petting his cat. Rook could hear its purr from where she sat on the floor. It was like a happy little motor buzzing away.

Before she could answer, a voice from outside made her blood grow cold. “Brother John! Are you alright?”

Rook stared up at him, her eyes wide with fear.

“ _Shit_.” John strode over to where Rook sat on the floor, joining her in a few short, quick strides. He pulled her up by her uninjured hand, yanking her to her feet. They collided just a little, chest to chest, knee to knee. She could see a slight pink flush on his cheeks, and he seemed oddly breathless.

They didn’t have time to gawk at each other for long. John led her behind a bizarrely located fireplace in the center of the room. Behind it was another part of the house entirely: a living room, judging by the furniture. A sleek, comfortable-looking couch came into view, and soon Rook found herself pushed down onto it.

John carefully set his cat down on the floor. It chirped happily and rubbed its whiskers against his ankle again, making his dark leg hair stand up on end. Without a word, he pulled a blanket off the back of the couch and threw it across Rook's body. “Pretend you’re a pillow,” he said.

“What?”

“Curl up and be quiet.”

Rook buried her head under the blanket and pulled her knees up to her chest. The couch groaned under John’s added weight, and she held her breath as he leaned against her legs. He slid one arm under the blanket and around her waist, holding her still.

 _Like a pillow,_ she thought, keenly aware of how _soft_ John’s hand was. He had it pressed against the small strip of skin that her shirt didn’t cover.

“Brother John?” the voice asked. A woman, judging by the tone, and she was quite close now.

As her footsteps drew closer to the couch, John pretended to stir. He groaned in a perfect imitation of a sleepy croak. “Wasrong?” he asked, slurring his words.

“Oh! I—I.. forgive me, brother. I thought I heard a scream.”

Rook tensed. Poor woman, getting an eyeful of the Baptist in all his… glory. Not that he wasn’t nice to _look_ at, but… _No, stop that. Stop that thought right there._ She sighed.

John pinched her hip in warning. He sighed too, masking her noise as he shifted his weight, pressing Rook down against the couch. He groaned again, restless. “I was _sleeping_.”

The woman almost squeaked. “I’ll just… I’ll leave you be. I’m sorry!” She turned from the room and, judging by how fast her steps were, basically ran out of the door.

After a few minutes, the couch creaked again as John sat up. He pulled the blanket off of Rook and pushed himself to his feet. She watched as he began to wind it around his narrow hips, cinching one of the edges into a knot.

“What took you so long?” he grumbled. His cat—Castor—hopped forward and began to bat at the bit of the blanket that dragged on the ground.

“Sorry,” Rook huffed, looking at his hips. _Stop that!_ “I don’t have a _plane_ I can cruise around in to get where I need to be.”

John eyed the dirt on her boots and the scratches on her hand and knuckles. He wrinkled his nose with a frown. “Good God, Deputy, did you walk here?”

“I did,” she said. “Your armed buddies shoot at me on sight, so it’s not exactly safe to drive around. And all those sinner fliers with my face on it don’t make it any easier, either.” She frowned. “How’d you even get a picture of me?”

“The Whitetails have cameras everywhere,” he said. “And so do we.”

“Oh.” She stared at him, wondering why he looked so smug.

And then it hit her.

“… Oh.”

John grinned.

“You can’t judge me,” she said quickly, swinging her legs over the side of the couch. Her boots thudded on the floor, scattering dirt and mud on the carpet. “ _You_ of all people can’t judge me.”

“Whoever said I was? We are all sinners, Deputy. I’m just a man of flesh and blood, no different from you.” He paused and glanced down at himself again. “Barring certain physical differences, of course.”

Rook rolled her eyes. “Weren’t we supposed to talk?”

“We are talking.”

“I mean about something else besides your penis.”

John held in his laugh. “If you have something you’d like to share,” he said, struggling not to giggle, “then I would gladly hear it. You have my full attention.”

They stared at each other long enough for any blush to fade and retreat inward. It warmed their blood and burned behind their eyes, igniting gazes that took slow, lingering turns around the other’s face.

Rook sat up straight and took a breath. John’s eyes darted down to her mouth and stayed there. “John…” she began, and then she stopped, hiding a yawn in her still bleeding fist.

John waited, his expression suddenly rigid. “We should get you cleaned up,” he said, frowning. “I don’t want you bleeding on my couch.”

“ _Your_ cat did this to me,” she huffed, glaring at the little furball.

“And I’m sure he’s very sorry,” John said, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “Now _please_ stand up. You’re dripping.”

Rook rolled her eyes once more and popped up to her feet. Then, to her surprise, John reached out to take her injured hand, drawing it close to his face so he could study the damage.

“How bad is it?” she whispered, aware of how fast her heart raced to have him touching her again.

“Not as awful as it looks,” he said, stroking her fingers with his thumb.

“Just point me to a First Aid kit and I’ll be as good as new.”

John made a face. “Deputy, you _insult_ me,” he said, pulling her gently behind him as he walked across the room and over to a narrow, dark doorway. “You’re my guest; I am your host.”

Without letting go of Rook’s hand, John bumped his elbow against the wall, flicking on a light switch. A small burst of light illuminated a cozy little bathroom, its walls painted a pale, sky blue.

 _Like his eyes,_ she thought.

John slowly pulled his fingers free and crouched down to pluck open the cabinet door beneath the sink. He reached in, pulled out a First Aid kit, and nudged the door shut with his knee. “More accurately,” he said, setting the kit down on the sink, “you are my patient, and now I must play doctor.”

Rook cleared her throat, watching as John's fingers moved deftly across the zipper and plucked out the supplies he needed. “I could’ve used that when you were hammering me with bullets,” she said, nodding to the bandages.

John frowned again. He looked almost guilty. “Forgive and forget, Deputy. Can you do that?”

“I could try.”

Silence fell between them, tense, not quite awkward, but still unsure. John cleaned her cuts with an almost careless ease, as if he had done this often enough to have it be pure instinct by now. That thought made her sad, too.

“I don’t suppose you would be comfortable spending the night,” he said, still frowning. “Or what’s left of it—on the _couch_ , of course,” he added, seeing her wide eyes and half open mouth.

“I dunno,” she said, pretending to think it over. “One of your cats already has a thirst for blood. I don’t really wanna push my luck.”

Her joke didn’t go over quite as well as she hoped.  John’s frown dissolved slowly, leaving behind a strangely heavy, shadowed expression.

Seeing the stricken look on his face, Rook softened her voice and added, “We could always call a mulligan and try this whole truce thing again some other time.”

“Could we?” he asked, both doubtful and eager.

As he waited for her answer, John carefully applied bandages to every cut on her hand, smoothing the little adhesive parts down with gentle swipes of his thumb. She didn’t reply until he was looking at her again, and his pale eyes were watchful and still eager, almost _needy_.

Rook leaned forward and gave his cheek a lingering kiss. “Yes,” she whispered, pulling back so she could see his face again.

John’s eyes glittered. He grinned at her, his gaze dropping to her mouth before he cupped the back of her head, sank his fingers into her hair, and kissed her breathless.

“ _‘Twice blessed,’_ ” he murmured against her lips, quoting Shakespeare again.

“ _‘Him that gives,’_ ” Rook said, stroking the SLOTH scar on his chest with her newly bandaged fingers. “ _‘She that takes.’_ ”

John moaned softly into her mouth and closed his eyes.

Rook pressed her forehead to his. “John?”

“Yes?” His voice was soft, barely a breath.

She kissed him again—it was quick, almost chaste. “Don't wear pants next time.”

**Author's Note:**

> Questions? Comments? Contact me @sisterfriedes on Tumblr!


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